


Hidden in Plain Sight

by belleslettres



Series: Hidden in Plain Sight [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Extremely Dubious Consent, HP: EWE, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Polyjuice Potion, Post-War, Prostitution, Rentboy Draco Malfoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 09:49:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10462032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belleslettres/pseuds/belleslettres
Summary: Draco is forced to turn to prostitution to pay his war debts. Harry spends almost three years searching for him…





	

**Author's Note:**

> In my defense, I had a fever. I went to bed, and awoke from a very restless night with this in my head. And, basically, I sat on my couch for two days drinking tea and typing this out. I personally find this story to be **dark and disturbing** , though I can’t quite put my finger on why; perhaps you’re braver than I, perhaps not. Either way, you have been warned. There is a happy ending.  
> After plenty of internal debate, I decided to skip the non-con label here… but when I say extremely dubious consent, I do mean _extremely dubious_. Also, while this story does _not_ contain any underage/child sexual abuse, there is a brief reference that may be disturbing to some. Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome. ~Blessings 
> 
> Also note: The characters and canon situations in the following story belong solely to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic and Warner Brothers. I am simply taking them out to play for a while. I promise to return them (more or less) in one piece when I am done. I am not making any money from the publishing or writing of this story.

She called it a room. She called it _his_ room, as if it gave him some sort of ownership of the space contained within the four white, windowless walls. But it isn’t a room at all… it is a cell. And the thing that is owned within the four white, windowless walls is Draco.

He had tried, he had _really_ tried. But after the war… His father was serving a life sentence in Azkaban, his mother, pardoned, but exiled with a tiny stipend to live somewhere that was _not_ in the United Kingdom, the Manor and all the money gone…. 

Harry Potter had saved him from Azkaban, but he couldn’t give him back his wand, couldn’t get him a job anywhere within the magical community, and couldn’t change the fact that he still had to pay 10,000 galleons in war reparations. 

The money just wasn’t _there._

In the Muggle world, Draco got up before sunrise to mop floors and move garbage from one place to another. Then he took money and handed people bits of charred meat and boxes of greasy potato sticks until after midnight.

He barely slept. He forced himself to eat the charred meat and greasy potato sticks because one meal per shift was part of his pay.

But it wasn’t enough. It was never enough.

A payment was due at the end of every month… and Draco just didn’t have it.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

The first time he sold himself to pay the reparation galleons, he hated himself.

The second time, he hated himself even more. 

The third time was when _she_ found him. He was shivering on a street corner, resolved to take literally anyone… because the money was due in the morning and if he didn’t pay he would be sent straight to Azkaban.

Her name was Elladora, she’d said, and she was offering him a position in what she called a house of pleasure. He hadn’t expected it to be pleasurable for _him_ , but he had expected it to be better than Azkaban prison.

Draco is never sure if he made the right decision.

He fucks the people she tells him to and he _becomes_ the person they want him to be. 

Literally. 

Polyjuice Potion burns going down… and then he waits as his bones grow or shrink, as his features change, molding themselves into the features his client wants. 

Elladora has a selection of beautiful people to choose from—Muggle movie stars, body builders, emaciated models—but many people bring their own.

No one ever sees _his_ face.

Draco has learned to breathe through the change, to bear it and to hope that the Polyjuice is the worst part of the encounter. 

Many people _are_ gentle—they are making love to someone they can’t have. Many people are not.

Draco doesn’t have a mirror, but he knows he has worn countless faces. Countless, because he refuses to count them. 

He has been taller and more muscular than he could have ever hoped to be, for some inexplicable reason he has been short, fat and bald a number of times. He did marvel at his body the day it turned the color of polished ebony. 

Draco hates to be forced into a woman’s body. 

Once he became a child and Draco prayed to any god who would listen that he was adequate… that the child whose body he wore was—and would remain—untouched. Because Draco could handle what a child could not. 

In truth, he didn’t handle it very well and had to cancel his next appointment because he couldn’t stop vomiting. Elladora was _not_ pleased… and she made her displeasure painfully clear.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Draco’s first thought is that the potion isn’t working. Then he realizes that it _is_ —but that his body has remained basically unchanged. He is still _him._

Before he can properly panic, Harry Potter pushes open the door, crosses the room in two strides, and pulls Draco into a deep kiss.

Draco threads his fingers through that oh-so-familiar hair and kisses him back. He nips Harry’s lower lip in the way that he knows he likes and is rewarded with an almost desperate cry. Draco throws his head back, giving Harry access to his neck and Harry gently worries the skin in the way that always could—always would—make him moan.

They kiss like they are back at the top of the Astronomy Tower, like they did just as spring was tipping into summer, when they made love every chance they got and _really_ believed that the war wouldn’t come between them. 

Before the Dark Lord sent him that lock of his mother’s hair… a not-so-subtle reminder of what was at stake if Draco failed. 

Before Draco decided not to show up for their normal after-curfew meeting, before Harry followed him into the bathroom, before Draco pointed his wand at Harry and shouted, _“Crucio!”_

Before Harry’s spell ripped him in half. 

Harry drops to his knees, pushing aside the flimsy robe that is all the clothing Draco really has, and takes him into his mouth.

The suddenness of it hits Draco like a punch to the stomach. 

_Harry doesn’t know._

He hasn’t come to be with _Draco._

He hasn’t come to rescue him… which Draco is forced to admit—for the very first time he _allows_ himself to admit it—is something he has dreamed about every moment of every _damned_ day since he first followed Elladora into her god forsaken house of pleasure.

Harry has come, like everyone else, to fuck someone he can’t have. He thinks he is buying an hour with someone who is wearing Draco’s face… because Draco disappeared without a word. And, apparently, without a trace.

Draco would have cried. But he can’t; tears, like words, are forbidden to him. 

Harry is going to fuck him and leave him and never know that it _was_ him. And there is absolutely nothing he can do about it.

The sound Draco makes sounds wounded, and Harry stops… stops moving his tongue in the way that he bloody well _knows_ Draco likes.

He looks up at Draco, his eyes are wide and green and concerned. “I’m sorry… I…”

Draco _knows_ Harry. He knows that Harry would never force himself on anyone… purchased whore or not. Nevertheless, if Harry leaves before his hour is up, Draco will pay dearly for it.

Elladora is practiced with the Cruciatius Curse… not quite to the extent of, say, Bellatrix, but she is more than capable of making Draco wish he had never laid eyes on her… making him wish that he had just gone quietly to Azkaban.

He can’t let Harry leave… he doesn’t _want_ to let Harry leave. He drops down beside Harry and reclaims his mouth for his own. 

Draco knows how to kiss Harry. Draco _loves_ to kiss Harry… and he sucks, probes, and caresses until this time it is Harry that moans.

He moans his name. _Draco._

Every day people fuck him, use him, hurt him if they want… and Draco lets them because it is his job. Because he has no choice. But just for today, Draco is going to cherish every touch, every moment… because this is _Harry._

Clothes slide away as Draco’s fingers and lips brush every inch of Harry… every muscle, every scar. Some of his scars are new.

Harry doesn’t do things in half-measures and he doesn’t now… and he kisses and caresses and strokes his way _through_ Draco, worshiping his body, nourishing his soul… and when he comes deep inside him, Draco forgets… who he is, what he is, _where_ he is… he forgets everything but Harry.

Harry’s hand is on him… Draco hasn’t come in _so long._ As his orgasm tears through him, painting them both in sticky ropes, it leaves him sobbing and choking on the word he can’t say: _Harry._

The bed in the white, windowless room will never really be clean, no matter how many _Scourgifies_ are cast on it. Harry lies on it, his fingers intertwined with Draco’s, as their last few minutes tick by. Part of Draco can’t stand to see him there, on the bed where so many have been… and part of Draco wishes he would never leave. 

“I’m looking for you, you know,” Harry says quietly. “Even if it’s only so you can slam the door in my face… I have to know. 

“You just disappeared… and I never got the chance to say… I have to tell you that I want you… that I just want to _be_ with you, forever, if you’ll have me… that I don’t _care_ what you did… and I know why you did it…. I love you, Draco. I think I always have.”

 _I love you, too._ Draco can’t say the words. _I can’t believe I never told you…._

The tears that are tracing down Harry’s cheeks have to be Draco’s tears too.

“I’ll find you. I promise,” Harry say, kissing him gently as the chime, signaling the end of his hour, rings.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

The war tore them apart. They had been foolish to think it wouldn’t; it couldn’t have been any other way. Then there were the trials and one last frantic coupling in the Ministry bathroom after Draco had been released.

In a manner of speaking. 

Released, wandless, to scrounge and starve and eventually sell himself to pay his reparations. 

Harry didn’t know. Or at least he didn’t know _everything_. There were a few dates, Harry suddenly shy and unsure, Draco so very, very tired of trying to make ends _that were just_ never _going to come together_ meet.

Harry was worried about him. He said it out loud… said he wanted to help. The words stung Draco’s pride. 

“I’m fine,” he had snapped. Those were the last words he said to Harry… _I’m fine…_

Three hours later, he left the dirty street corner with Elladora.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Elladora brings him books, and when he isn’t working, he devours them. Muggle authors mostly: Tolkien, of course, but also Stephen King, Tom Clancy, and John Grisham. He reads more of Danielle Steele than he wishes to contemplate. He feels that the American authors are a tad overrepresented, but he doesn’t mind. And, in any case, Elladora doesn’t allow him to make requests; she doesn’t allow him to speak at all. He reads what she gives him, or he reads nothing.

Perhaps he will try to get a job in a book shop when this is all over—he feels that he has read at least _something_ from every Muggle author in existence. He spends his time trying to keep track of them, to remember his favorites, and note the similarities and differences of the authors. 

Elladora brings him _The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy_. He enjoys the first one, but he feels that parts of the second book hit too close to home; he does not read the third.

He feels that, at least when he is alone, he should be allowed to cry.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

The next time Harry comes to him, the Polyjuice potion has more work to do. There are bruises to cover and ribs to fill out. Draco has never been dark, but the glow of his skin must be restored, his hair returned to its golden sheen.

Draco drops to his knees, worshiping Harry with tongue and gentle teeth.

“No,” Harry says. “I want you to fuck me. Draco, I _need_ to feel you inside of me. _Please.”_

Draco stretches Harry carefully, tenderly… as Harry whimpers with need. With a finger brushed against his lips, Draco silences him; he is not rushing this. Harry is tight, like it really _has_ been years, and Draco refuses hurt him. He breaches him slowly and smoothly and stops. 

Tears lace Harry’s eyelashes, but Draco is almost certain they are not tears of pain. Physical pain, at least. Harry traces Draco’s eyebrows, cheekbones… as if committing to memory every bit of his face… “I’ve missed you so much,” Harry whispers, running his thumb over Draco’s lips. 

Draco catches the thumb and bites gently. _I’ve missed you, too._

Harry runs his hands down Draco’s back; Harry is feeling the lithe muscles of Draco’s former self, when in reality the muscles have been replaced with prominent ribs and a few new scars. It still feels good. Harry’s hands grip him by the hips and pull. 

“Yes,” he gasps. “Please. I _need_ this. I need to be able to still feel you tomorrow… the next day… _Please.”_

Draco could never really say no to Harry… and he doesn’t now. 

It doesn’t take long before Harry is shuddering and coming, gripping Draco’s hips with bruising fingers. Draco doesn’t mind; _these_ bruises he will cherish. 

A moment later he thrusts deeply, spilling into Harry. Draco collapses down on the bed. 

“I’m not giving up,” he says. “Ron and Hermione are helping now. I _promise_ we will find you.” 

_I’m here… Please, Harry, I’m here…_

Draco’s throat tightens, but he cannot tell if it’s Elladora’s silencing curse working on him, or if it simply the natural response to unshed tears and unsaid words. 

He rises up on his elbow and looks down at Harry. He threads his fingers through his hair, brushes his cheek almost reverently, and kisses him deeply. Draco tries let the kiss say everything he can’t… _I’m here… I love you… please_ see _me…._ He tries to pour his entire _self_ into the kiss. 

In the end, though, the chime rings and Harry leaves. 

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

The contract Draco signed was for three years. The math was right, but he isn’t sure he’s going to last. His body just can’t keep up.

He still refuses to count the number of clients Elladora sends him, but he is sure she is sending him more. And they are almost never gentle. 

Perversely, while the Polyjuice potion steals every feature that belongs to Draco, any pain inflicted on the not-Draco does not fade with the borrowed body. The pains stays, shooting through him when he moves; the bruises remain and Draco’s body is covered with them… though they are masked, of course, by the next dose of Polyjuice. 

Even if a client _wanted_ to be gentle with him, wanted to not hurt him, at this point he would find it nearly impossible. 

Harry is cupping his head, running his thumb gently across Draco’s cheek. He has no way of knowing that he is pressing on a very nasty bruise. Draco isn’t entirely sure that the bone is not cracked; he knows some of his ribs are.

From what Draco gathered, the man from last night had discovered his wife was cheating on him. He wanted to exact revenge on her and found Draco, wearing his soon-to-be ex-wife’s body, to be a reasonable substitute. Draco’s throat is raw from screaming and, though the vagina the man tore into doesn’t even _exist_ anymore, the vanished tears still burn. 

Draco lets out a little sob.

Harry’s hands stop sliding over Draco’s perfect body… the body that was his when he was playing Quidditch almost every day, the body that had enough to eat, the body that didn’t have a scar slicing across his heart. The body that Harry remembers making love to. 

“I’m hurting you?”

Draco nods before he thinks better of it. 

Elladora rarely thinks it’s worth it to give him healing potions. If she gives him a bruise-healing potion, he cannot take Polyjuice for twelve hours, for twenty-four hours if she gives him Skele-Gro. If it’s physically possible for Draco to work, she sends him clients, expecting him to simply _cope_ with the pain.

“Draco…,” Harry says and whispers a healing spell.

The spell will fade long before the bruise does, but for now it is enough that his cheek has stopped throbbing with each heartbeat. 

Harry moves to the bed. “Come here,” he says. It sounds like an invitation, not an order.

Draco moves forward though as if it is, dreading the idea of _Harry_ causing him pain… and, at the same time, wanting nothing more than Harry’s touch. His fingers are on the robe, ready to shed it, but Harry stops him. 

“No. Not today. I don’t want to hurt you… I just… just let me hold you. Please.” 

Gingerly, Draco joins him on the bed. Harry is observant and sensitive and his healing spells wipe away his hurts, one bruise after another, and even the broken ribs, until Draco is resting comfortably in his lap. 

Harry cards his fingers through Draco’s hair, so short and tangle-free. “It’s all right, just relax. Sleep, if you want to. We’ve got time.”

Draco _doesn’t_ want to. But pain has been stalking his sleep for _so_ long… and Harry is safe. Safety.

Draco laces his fingers with Harry’s, lets Harry hold him… lets his eyes fall shut. 

He awakes to Harry’s kiss on his temple. “I’m sorry. I would stay if I could… I would let you sleep for hours like that… if she’d let me.”

 _She…_ in some ways Harry is as much subject to Elladora’s whims as Draco is. 

Draco sits up and catches Harry’s eyes in his own. They are so beautiful: emerald, yes, but with flecks of turquoise and even amber. He memorizes every detail, every highlight, every sparkle… because he knows Harry will not come back… not to someone whom he cannot touch without hurting.

The eyes are glittering now, with unshed tears. Harry blinks and two solitary tears trace his cheeks. “If I kiss you, will I hurt you?”

_If you kiss me, and then walk out that door, you will kill me._

Draco shakes his head and Harry’s mouth descends… slowly, carefully. So gentle… so much longing. It is a first kiss.

Or a kiss goodbye.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Draco _should_ have had more faith.

Three days, and Draco refuses to know how many clients later, Draco drinks yet another beakerful of Polyjuice potion… and it is a long time before he realizes that _nothing_ is happening; no burning, no pain, no changing of bones, or twisting of features.

Nothing.

The door pushes open, slowly. Not the way a client comes into the room, but rather as though it really is _Draco’s_ room… and the person on the other side of the door isn’t sure he is welcome. 

“It is you,” Harry says, his voice ragged. “It’s really you.”

There is nothing Draco can say.

“Oh, Draco, I am so… _so_ sorry.” 

Draco is going to faint… he is fainting… he _has_ fainted, because he is in Harry’s arms and they are sitting on the floor. 

“It’s all right. I’ve got you.” Harry just holds him and repeats those words, over and over.

~Fin~

**Author's Note:**

> This was the end, as originally imagined. (Remember, I had a fever!) However, I ~~intend to write~~ have finished the second part about what happens _after_ Harry takes Draco out of there. Because you know he's going to, right? But ~~it is very much a WIP at this point~~ it took forever, but [ In Plain Sight](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10606998/chapters/23453253) is finished now.  
>  As always, kudos, comments, and constructive criticism are always very welcome. Thank you for reading!
> 
> You can also find me on Tumblr as [ belleslettres-love](https://belleslettres-love.tumblr.com).


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